Is non- recoverable ASD burnout a real thing/risk

I have been in an autistic burnout for the past 6 years. I was diagnosed with autism 5 years ago and adhd a year ago. 

I had my first autistic burnout at 18 months old and was hospitalised in an isolation room for 3 weeks with no treatment of any kind, then after 3 weeks of isolation I ‘mysteriously recovered’, and looking back on my life, that was the first of many burnouts throughout my life. Although I became excellent at masking and getting through life.

However, over the last 16 years, the burnouts became more frequent, lasted longer and the come back period seemed to get harder. And in the last 6 years, I lost the ability to function to any reasonable degree at all. I lost my memory to the degree I forgot how to eat and lost my ability to communicate other than to put on a mask when faced with people (this was feeble but automatic after years of practice and because I rarely saw anybody, it kept my family from asking too many questions that I couldn’t answer and was just enough to enable me to keep on hiding until I figured out what was happening to me. I thought I would never recover, even with lots of support from autism plus and other places, until a few weeks ago. 

A few weeks ago, my 34 year old son broke up with his partner and came to stay with me for a while, and this turned out to be the thing that finally turned my life around.

I usually live by myself and when my son came to stay, I was unable to hide from the fact and was face to face with the fact, that I could never recover from this burnout and become anything like the person I have been for the past 55 years. I realised the game was over and there was nothing I could do about that. For whatever reason, there was no one at fault or to blame here, it was too late in the day for that, because it was over.

I haven’t seen any of my family over Christmas; my son hasn’t spoke to me since he walked out of my house in a rage at me over a week ago, I spoke to my mum on Christmas Eve and that’s it. I phoned to tell her to have a nice Christmas and to not worry about me, even though they have excluded me from their Christmas, because I’m done with their non-acceptance of me/autism, and I’m turning things around and so I told her to enjoy her Christmas because I was going to enjoy mine.

And I did. I lost my whole family in one go, but I gained my life, and I honestly had the best Christmas I’ve ever had in my life. Of course I am still working through the sorrow and the loss of the illusion that was my life, but already things are looking up and I’ll be starting this coming year off from a good place instead of one of recovering from the hell of Christmas, that I endured every year because I thought that because I was with my family, things were ok, but I failed to see the damage their response to me had on me, and as such I failed to see how much I allowed people to abuse me over the years. It all makes sense now.

But really, what I have lost is my attachment to the myth of ‘the family’, which means that instead of always putting the needs of my family first, I can now begin to put my needs first, because I also lost the ability to allow myself to go un-noticed and I lost the ability to pass my needs off as me being awkward or whatever, so others feel more comfortable, and instead I’m recognising and acknowledging my needs and setting myself up/setting my environment and routines up in a way that supports me, and I’m growing a network of friends or people that accept me and my differences and work with me, so I can offer my unique gifts to the world and be a member of society like everybody else, albeit in my way, that will look different to the way that a non autistic person’s life looks.

So I think recovery from burn out’s,  all depends on each person’s personal circumstances, which I think is often marked by how much support a person has from family and friends, and for me, my autistic and adhd needs were never fully recognised or met so a toxic pattern was set up that I was unable to break, until I finally burned out to the degree I couldn’t recover, and my only choice then was to die or begin to live as me, because after all, what have I now got to loose after loosing not only my former idea of who I was and my former life/lifestyle, work etc, but also my whole family. I was living to an invisible imbedded rule of always putting my family and others first, that I had to be forced into total breakdown before I could begin to see that I was worthy of having my needs met as well, regardless of how different they might be to others and regardless of who else can or can’t accept them, because I realised, if I don’t recognise and accept my needs, nobody else will and we all have fundamental needs that have to be met for us to thrive. So my burnout was non-returnable in one sense, but in another, it returned to me my real, unmasked self and a chance to live a full life, which doesn’t include trying to fit in and live and look like a neurotypical person, which was taking more from me than I ever really realised and that’s when it culminated in a non-returnable burnout, which has been heart wrenching beyond belief at times, but getting through to the other side, has all but wiped away all  that heartache, and enables me to finally live according to truth and authenticity, which is priceless to a person that values truth above societal norms.

Golly....quite a journey you describe!  Never say never though.  I commend your decisiveness in regard to your self-preservation, but also recommend that you maintain plasticity of purpose?!

Welcome to this place.  I hope you find connection and comfort here.

Golly....quite a journey you describe!  Never say never though.  I commend your decisiveness in regard to your self-preservation, but also recommend that you maintain plasticity of purpose?!

Welcome to this place.  I hope you find connection and comfort here.

Thank you